


More Kisses, Fewer Tears

by greygerbil



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Public Display of Affection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27307285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Georgi is at the Grand Prix Finals again, this time as a coach. The Kiss-and-Cry remains an exciting experience nevertheless.
Relationships: Christophe Giacometti/Georgi Popovich
Kudos: 11
Collections: Anime FF, Rare Ships!!! on BINGO 2020





	More Kisses, Fewer Tears

**Author's Note:**

> Rare Ships On Bingo prompt was: Kiss-And-Cry.

“Are you ready, Leonie?”

Georgi put the backstage pass for coaches back around his neck and pulled again at the tie he’d just fixed as he glanced over his shoulder.

“No!” Leonie came to an abrupt halt by his side. “I can’t do the eyes. Can you help?”

With a pout, Leonie handed him the eye shadow. For having negative interest in all things make-up and fashion, she’d managed the lipstick and the lashes quite well.

“I’ll fix it.”

He waved her out of the way of a couple of technicians and knelt down in front of Leonie, who, at thirteen, still was slight as twigs and so short that she looked like she belonged in novice – but only as long as she was not on the ice. 

Last year around this time, Georgi had been here at the Grand Prix Finals as a competitor, proud of the bronze medal he’d managed to collect. Leonie wasn’t aiming for a goal that low. While considering their difference in mindset, Georgi had sometimes wondered if, even though it was an injury that had forced him out of competing, it might have been his time to go, anyway. In spring, Georgi had still regretted the decision to retire even as he flew to join his boyfriend Chris in Zürich. By June, Josef, Chris’s coach, had drafted him as a helping hand to replace a coach in his team who had switched careers, and by July Georgi had found himself in charge of seven juniors and novices, among them Leonie Muafangejo, and since then had been too busy to mourn his first career.

He’d always figured that if he would coach, he’d probably be a good fit for skaters who loved ballet training, classical music, and theatrical, romantic choreographies. In the end, it was Leonie who had picked him as her head coach, a tomboy in sports jerseys who kept her black curls cropped half an inch short and, after being cajoled by Josef into a warhorse from _Turandot_ for her free, had picked electronic dance music with a heavy beat for her short. ‘World at Our Feet’ was playing through her earphones as Georgi fixed her eye shadow. The thoughtful frown on her face and the way her fingers tapped the wall to the rhythm made their unlikely connection much less so. Leonie was a very different sort of artist than him, but she was one from the bone.

“I think we’re ready,” he said, after taking a critical look at her fire-coloured make-up. “I’m going to the rink to watch Chris.” He pocketed the eye shadow palette. “Are you going to sit with Soo-Yun?”

At the qualifier in Couchevel, Georgi had learned of Soo-Yun, a friend Leonie had made at a summer camp last year, who had qualified for the finals as well. Leonie would never miss one of Chris’ skates. As the paramount Swiss skating star, he was her idol. “I want gold at the GPF, though. He never got that,” she’d said very quietly to Georgi at the rink one day. She’d made him promise he wouldn’t tell Chris she’d said that.

“Yeah! I’ll be back after.”

As Leonie darted off, Georgi hurried into the main competition area. He’d watched Jean-Jaques Leroy on the screen while waiting for Leonie to get ready, but as a member of Josef’s team, he was technically also Chris’s coach and had good reason to loiter at the side of the rink. This was the first time he would get to watch Chris live without being on the ice with him that day.

He came to find Chris already on the ice, leaning on the border to have a quiet conversation with Josef. As he spotted Georgi, he waved and gave him a blinding grin. Georgi watched him swing away and dash towards the middle of the ice in a flash of shimmering silver-blue fabric.

-

“Coach Popovich, fancy seeing you here!”

Georgi gave Chris a small smile, holding a water bottle to him.

“Josef told me to sit here,” he said, glancing at Josef, who had been exchanging words with one of the organisers and only now turned to join them.

“He always has good ideas,” Chris sat breathlessly, grinning at Josef.

Chris exchanged a couple of plush hearts and a bouquet for Georgi’s bottle as he sat down in the kiss-and-cry. He was red-faced, but looked satisfied.

“You really kept the audience on the edge of their seats. Those spins were sublime!”

Georgi saw Josef hiding a bemused smile at his rapturous compliments, but he’d never been able to hide his feelings.

“Well, since you retired and Victor is injured, I have to stand alone for our generation on the ice,” Chris said with a grin. “I don’t have the patience to coach, so I need to skate as long as I can.”

“You’re not slowing down yet,” Josef noted.

Georgi shifted the bouquet and plushies, glancing over to the panel of judges. Leroy had popped a jump, Otabek had underrotated a couple, and Yuri had fallen out of a spiral, but otherwise everyone had been clean. However, Chris had thrown himself into the short program like he was skating for his life. Georgi suspected Chris had realised over the course of last season that there were other competitors who were both worthy of his time, yet not so far out of reach as Victor had always seemed.

Chris turned to him to say something, but that was when the announcer gave the scores through the speakers. Chris, who’d been last to skate, was in second place – only a couple of points behind Yuri and before Yuuri. Georgi smiled widely at Chris, who made a heart at the camera with his fingers before he hugged Josef and then turned to Georgi. When Georgi opened his arms to embrace him as well, Chris leaned in and kissed him.

It was not their first kiss in public, but Georgi still turned red on account of the multitude of cameras and phones pointed straight at them, detailing how Chris pushed his tongue into his mouth.

“What? We’re already official,” Chris said brightly as he leaned back.

He waved at the audience again, one arm around Georgi’s shoulders.

-

Leonie caught up with them by the door backstage after Chris had given his interview, just as Georgi had decided to go looking for her and Soo-Yun.

“Christophe!” She smiled at him, a little too wide, tugging at the fabric of her sports jacket. “Your skate was really good.”

“Why, thank you. Your coach here inspired me,” Chris said, batting his lashes at Georgi. “I’ll be watching you, Leonie.”

With nervous excitement, Leonie gave a nod. She’d never approached Chris before Georgi had come along and had become a link between them. Unlike Yakov, Josef kept his senior and junior groups fairly separate.

“Georgi, I’ll be in the back for a moment, but you’ll take her to the warm-up, yes?” Josef asked. “I’ll be right back, Leonie.”

Leonie was in the first warm-up group and the zamboni was just about finished. Georgi ushered her to the rinkside while Chris looked on.

“Should I try the triple axel?”

“I don’t think you need to. You know you can land it.” And if she fell, Georgi knew she’d get angry and try too hard in the actual skate. “Concentrate on your performance and you won’t even think about it. Do you remember what we said?”

“Yes,” Leonie said as she handed him her skate guards, stepping on the ice.

“The world?” he asked sternly.

“Here,” Leonie said, raising her chin and ramming her toepick into the ice.

“At your feet,” Georgi reiterated. “You’re going to show them something great, right?”

Leonie wiped her palms on her red trousers and nodded her head, with all the proud, youthful defiance that Georgi knew would make her skate look outstanding if she could hold on to it for the whole performance.

“You’re actually becoming a coach,” Chris said behind him, as Leonie had joined the other girls.

On his skates, he was taller than Georgi, and he placed his chin on his shoulder as he looked out over the ice with him.

“For Leonie’s sake, I hope so,” Georgi said with a frown.

She had such potential that she probably should have been in more experienced hands. It was good Josef was around.

“You said she’s close to getting the quad toe, isn’t she? I’ll have to try hard so I’m still going to be the most impressive person sitting by your side in the kiss-and-cry,” Chris joked as he squeezed him briefly before letting go. “I’ll go take off my skates. Save me a spot.”

He kissed the back of his head before he walked away. Georgi found himself looking after Chris, briefly distracted by the blooming warmth in his chest that every hug and kiss from his boyfriend still caused, before he turned back to follow Leonie’s movement on the ice among the other junior ladies. In that swerving glance, however, he saw Yakov at rinkside talking to Irina Gavrilov, just dispatching her back onto the ice after giving some advice Georgi hadn’t caught. Irina would be sixteen next January. Georgi had trained alongside her for a while.

Yakov looked around and caught Georgi’s gaze, surprise showing on his face. Though he knew what Georgi had been doing with his time, he probably hadn’t expected that Georgi would be here after so few months working as a coach; Georgi certainly hadn’t. As Georgi walked over to greet him, he realised the smile he summoned was true.

Somehow, he’d figured it would hurt more, seeing Yakov here and knowing they would not be going to the kiss-and-cry together. However, Georgi’s student was on the ice and his boyfriend had kissed him in front of dozens of cameras and suddenly, though he missed Yakov after all these years of seeing him almost daily, and even if he still wanted to go out onto the ice himself, Georgi was happy where he was.


End file.
